Karma
by Cheshiremask
Summary: Sometimes the scales are tipped for you. Sometimes they're tipped against you. Rated M for violence and language. Includes some 5/8. Now Complete
1. Chapter 1

It wasn't fair.

There they were, minding their own business, and all of a sudden _another_ fucking group of youkai bursts out of the underbrush and all of a sudden all hell breaks loose. First thing in the fucking morning, too. Gojyo had only been halfway through his first cigarette of the day when he'd been forced to drop it to the ground, summoning his weapon to his hand in time to keep one of the fucking bastards from parting his stylishly long hair with a disgustingly rusty, jagged-edged sword. It didn't take long for the others to chip in, though. All of them were used to this shit by now. Even as he concentrated on taking out another couple of rampaging fuck-ups, he could see the blur that was Goku, meting out an early morning ass-whipping, and the sharp retorts of Sanzo's gun and Hakkai's chi were impossible to ignore in the still morning air.

They were doing great, too. The idiots were falling like bowling pins. The four of them had been fighting with one another for long enough that they'd finally figured out how to move so that no one was in someone else's way. How to predict who would go after what target. They finally trusted one another enough to take for granted the fact that they'd be covered from sneak attacks when they were preoccupied.

The last of the youkai fell, and they all stood there in silence for a moment, just waiting to see if there was another wave waiting in the wings. Nothing else stirred, though…nothing. And after a long moment, Sanzo tucked his gun back into one of the wide sleeves of his robe and muttered something surly about dumbasses making too much fucking noise first thing in the morning. Goku complained loudly about missing breakfast, Hakkai laughed that little, preoccupied laugh that he used to fill silence and gave some kind of platitude to the kid about making something they could eat in the jeep, and Gojyo banished his shakujou back to wherever it went when he didn't need it, rummaging around for his lighter and a fresh cigarette to get the rest of his fix.

Too bad the one thing they still weren't good with was surprise attacks.

Gojyo didn't even manage to light his cigarette. The bastard leapt out of a fucking _tree_, screaming, and pouncing right on top of him, all manic smile with a crazy light in his eyes. Gojyo didn't even manage to kick him off in time to keep the bastard from sinking some kind of knife blade deep into his skin, but he was on his feet by the time Sanzo took the fucker out with a shot to the head, on his knees by the time he heard the somehow tinny sound of Hakkai's panicked cry of his name. On his side in time to see the world blur into a kind of hazy mix of colors and shapes as his eyes focused on the too-white tube of his lost cigarette instead of anything he _wanted_ to look at before everything went dark.

It just wasn't fair.


	2. Chapter 2

Gojyo groaned softly, waking up slowly and feeling…disgusting. Where everything had faded to black before, the world was fading back into focus a painful, jarring white. It was like the whole world had been waxed or something…way too bright and really uncomfortable. There was a soft hiss and beep too…rhythmic and disturbing. As his eyes focused slowly, he found that he couldn't quite move his head, but he could look around…and he was kind of shocked to find that he couldn't see Hakkai. Or Sanzo. Or even the brat. Usually when one of them went down at least _one_ of the others hung around to make sure that they didn't kick it while they slept.

_Maybe they just stepped out…yeah…_

He did his best to stay calm. No use panicking when it would freak Hakkai out. He was a little confused…kind of dazed, really, and he couldn't figure out where he was…getting all flustered would probably just raise a stink, and he didn't really want to have to deal with smile number thirty two; the one that said, in no uncertain terms, 'Gojyo, you've been hurt and now you're being an idiot, and I'm not going to forgive you for it.'

He ended up falling asleep again because his body felt really heavy. But he did wake up later, feeling better. He was well enough that he felt more lucid, and the fact that he could understand what he was seeing when he looked around meant that he was confronted with a whole bunch of shit that he wasn't happy about.

Everything _was_ white. But it had gone dark at some point and the blazing glare from the walls, ceilings and floor had died down to a kind of hazy, yellow one because of the artificial lighting. The bit that _really_ fucked with his head, though, was the sudden, horribly uncomfortable realization that he had some kind of fucking _tube_ threaded down his throat. He panicked, bringing his hands up to first claw at the outside lead and then pull on it carefully, freaking out all the way but somehow managing to get rid of it without choking or throwing up, though his stomach felt empty enough that all he was likely to cough up would be bile and his throat felt more raw than after he'd lost his voice screaming at enemy youkai. He threw the tube away from him with shaking hands, looking around with a panicked, wide-eyed stare as the beeping got faster…was something going to fucking _explode_?

No…no…that wasn't it…there was a machine or something beside his bed…a line of light rolling from one side to the other in sharp, jagged movements. Every time the line peaked, the piece of shit beeped loudly, piercingly, and he felt the irrational need to kick it over, shut it up. He didn't, though…no use attracting too much attention with the noise it would make. As soon as he tore his eyes away from it, though, he was met with another sight that just got the god damned thing beeping quicker. His arms…both his arms had leads in them. He must have missed noticing them in his earlier panic but now that he saw them he wanted them _out_, and pulling them loose hurt like a _motherfucker _but he was used to pain. He was _damned_ used to pain. And when he got rid of them and got out of the fucking bed someone had better be fucking prepared to explain to him where Hakkai was because he should _be here to explain this._

The noise from the machine turned into a constant, high-pitched whine as soon as he pulled the last wires away from his skin, throwing them to the side and picking agitatedly at the little white pads that they'd left on his chest. His legs were numb…he didn't want to think about whatever else he might be hooked up to, and he didn't get a chance, because someone in the hall must've finally heard the commotion he was making and the door – which he'd somehow gone without noticing all this time – opened all at once and some woman in a plain, strange looking set of clothing ran in, stared at him like he'd come back from the fucking dead, and ran back out again, yelling at the top of her lungs. Gojyo didn't even register what she was saying, shouting after her and shocking himself with how rough he sounded…like he hadn't spoken a word in longer than he cared to think.

He wasn't given an explanation when she came back. All he got was a flurry of more strangers, big men holding his arms and legs down while other people in white coats ran around in a panic, everybody talking over one another as he tried to demand an explanation. The noise was so overwhelming after the relative silence he'd woken up in that he couldn't make out individual voices, much less _words_, and all of a sudden there was a sharp jab in one of his arms and he couldn't fight the fuckers holding his limbs down and all of a sudden that heavy feeling was back and everything faded back to black.


	3. Chapter 3

The tubes were mostly gone when he woke up again. There was some kind of mask over his nose and mouth, though. And the fucking leads were back in his arms. But he could tell that the tubes were gone. The high-pitched beep was still there, though. The fuckers must've set everything back up after they'd sedated him. Another unhappy change was that he was strapped down to the fucking bed. A quick look confirmed it. However, there was some kind of thing on the mattress by his fingers…a button or something. With no better alternative, he pushed it.

It sounded kind of far away, but somewhere, something pinged. He pressed the button a few more times to make sure it was him and yes, he'd just tapped out 'shave and a haircut'. The woman that answered the call looked baffled when she came in the room, but obviously the sight of him with the switch in his hand made her think twice, considering there was nobody else in the room. It took a few tries, and he sounded like the jeep going over a gravel path, but he managed to grind out a demand to know where he was around the plastic thing over his face, and she replied – very slowly and loudly, like he was some kind of fucking retard – that she'd go get him a doctor to explain everything.

Somehow he doubted that.

When the 'doctor' came back, he reminded Gojyo of nothing more than that batshit insane fucker from Hotou…Nii, or whatever his name was. Same kind of dress shirt, tie, glasses, and that white lab coat made him look like an ass. If he didn't look so mousey under everything Gojyo would have been tempted to feed him his teeth, restraints or not, but as it was he just looked nervous.

_As he fucking should. I'm going to gut that Kougaiji bastard if this is his doing._

"_What's…going…on…?_" Gojyo glared as powerfully as he could and was somewhat placated by the fact that the rat flinched. Damn straight he'd better be afraid. If he didn't start explaining himself – and if this had _anything_ to do with Sanzo's fucking sutra – Gojyo was going to go apeshit.

"You've been…you've been in a bit of a coma, Mister Shaw." Gojyo's brow furrowed even deeper as the idiot mispronounced his name. What, was he deaf as well as stupid? Hakkai would have told him Gojyo's full name…and even if he _had_ been captured by the enemy, even _they_ knew his fucking handle. "For about six months now. Motorcycle accident. We didn't really think you'd wake up, to be honest, but you've been showing such high brain activity that we've been holding out hope."

A…_what_ accident? Gojyo's frown turned puzzled, his eyes leaving the 'doctor' for a second as he tried to think. The last thing he remembered was the blurry view of that damn cigarette he hadn't managed to smoke. The sound of Hakkai's voice. An _attack_, not an accident. The stranger carried on speaking, though, so he was forced to pay attention again.

"We'll be keeping you for observation for a little while longer, Mister Shaw. Just to make sure everything's functioning properly. I'm sure it's just a formality at this point, considering how…_vigorous_ you were yesterday night, but you know how it goes. 'Better safe than sorry'."

Gojyo was about to respond with something about how that chipper attitude would get the man a swift kick in the balls, but his voice was still too slow to respond and the man was at his bedside in a few strides, a little flashlight in his hands. He shone the light directly into Gojyo's eyes, making him blink and flinch away as spots hovered in his vision. _Fucking asshole._

"Well…you've got a good response to light…admirable dilation of the pupils…Mary here said you paged with a little bit of a ditty, eh Mister Shaw? It's good to know you've retained your sense of humor, hm?"

_Oh yeah. And it would be fucking _hilarious_ if you just undid the fucking restraints so I could drum that 'ditty' into your skull with my fists._

"Now I realize you may be feeling a bit confused, but just bare with us, alright? You need your rest. And once you're a little better up to snuff, we'll have a sit down and a chat." At that, the man looked genuinely concerned, though, and that gave Gojyo reason to pause. Maybe this wasn't some kind of hostile environment…just because he hadn't seen Hakkai, Sanzo or Goku didn't automatically mean bad shit was going down. He didn't believe what the fucker was saying about a 'coma', but maybe he wasn't going to be hurt. They could've killed him while he was asleep, after all…

The beeping that had been going on through the whole exchange had slowed down a bit, and the doctor nodded a little to himself when he looked at the machine, turning a somewhat relieved smile on Gojyo.

"There we go. You keep up staying calm like this and we'll have you out of the restraints by bedtime. Just rest for now, Mister Shaw. And feel free to hit the call button if you need anything; one of our nurses will be with you in a jiffy."

Gojyo watched the two of them leave the room. He didn't trust anyone here as far as he could throw them, but they had all the answers, so he'd wait. Unlike what Sanzo and the gang thought of him, he could be patient…it took time and effort to reel in a shy girl, after all. And anyways, once they got him healthy, he'd have a much better chance of fighting his way out if he had to…


	4. Chapter 4

They told him his name was Gordon Shaw. And then they'd been stupid enough to be alarmed when he argued.

He'd figured out pretty quickly to play along, though. They were, after all, the ones that still had needles and god knew what else hooked up to his body, and really, he'd already learned from Hakkai that you didn't argue with your doctor when he had you at a disadvantage. He made nice by pretending that he'd been confused. It was the truth anyways, he was completely fucking baffled.

He was careful, though. He wanted out as soon as possible, so he played nice. Joked with the doctors, flirted with the nurses, all of the million, stupid little things he'd learned to do as a kid to ingratiate himself with others and stay under the radar. He was constantly being told that he was doing well, that he'd be let go soon, but it took him two days of wondering if they weren't just fucking with him with the intention of keeping him trapped in a fucking bed before he was actually unhooked from enough of the machines to 'test his muscles'.

It was then that he was confronted with a few unsettling revelations. The first was that he was fucking _weak_. He had to lean on the attendant to get to the _bathroom_, no more than ten steps away from his bed. And then he was confronted with _another_ unhappy sight.

He…didn't look like _him_.

The attendant was standing right outside the door, Gojyo could hear the tiny brushes of his clothing against the thin, hollow wood, so he had to stay _quiet_, but he was honestly freaking out, one of his hands shakily carding through short, _blond_ hair. It looked shaggy, like it had grown out…like he really _had_ been here for too long…and the eyes that stared back at him from the horrified face in the mirror were a dark cobalt blue.

A few painful tries at removing contacts that weren't actually there made him lose hope that his hair would grow out.

Gojyo wanted to scream. To break something, to cuss the whole world out for fucking with him, but again, he wanted _out_. He didn't want to be tied up, drugged into unconsciousness, and tossed into a loony bin for demanding to know why his eyes weren't red and where the scars on his cheek had gone and why he seemed about three inches shorter than he should be…

He just ran the water in the tap and splashed it against his face like it would help, and somehow kept from vomiting bile into the toilet as his gut knotted up into a tight clench of terror and anxiety.

Either this was all a lie…or something was seriously, horribly wrong.


	5. Chapter 5

When they finally do release him, it's to a sister he doesn't remember having. And she has a look on her face like it hurts to think that he doesn't. The kind of look that he thinks he remembers trying to keep off of the faces of hundreds of girls just like her.

It's getting harder to remember if what he thinks is real _is_ or not.

She keeps an eye on him for a week or so. Checking in on him at what he guesses is his very own apartment, driving him to what everyone calls 'physio' because he apparently can't drive a car. It strikes him as morbidly funny that it would be true now too. But somehow the pictures of this new body of his standing beside a sleek, two-wheeled _thing_ made of metal and black plastic – the 'motorcycle' that everyone is all too willing to tell him he crashed – seems right. At least it wasn't something stupider. If all of this had been because he'd slipped in the fucking tub or something it probably would've been the last straw in a long, long line of them.

She fills him in when they have a minute. When she doesn't feel as uncomfortable around him as he supposed anyone would, considering he wasn't who she thought he should be, even though there were moments when she seemed to have forgotten anything had changed. He tried to guess the right answers to the little things she asked him – cream and sugar in his coffee? Did he want his eggs scrambled or fried? – and he got a couple, because she had tells like a fucking light bulb turning on and off, but there were times when he was just too tired to answer like _Gordon_ would and get something _he_ doesn't want.

It turns out that he at least has something to fall back on. She calls it health insurance and he thinks of it as easy income. Since he has her to vouch for him – along with all the fuckers back at the hospital – he can apparently get some kind of deal that has him staying home but getting paid by the guys he apparently worked for. He's a little annoyed when he finds out he used to be in middle management. That sounds more like something Hakkai would do.

He manages to remember not to bring Hakkai up. Or Sanzo. Or Goku.

Time ticks by with an agonizing sameness. Nothing seems to change as the days slide past. He's not allowed to do much, in case he 'forgets' again. In truth, he'd walk away from her house and just keep going until he collapsed if he _was_ allowed to leave, so he doesn't. The bland doldrums of simple existence reminds him of his teen years, before he'd met Banri, when his mind was never concerned with what sat between now and forever except for when it came to his next beer, his next fuck, or his next cigarette.

The psychologist says that he's suffering from depression.

He's not sure if he agrees or not when the whole fucking world seems to have become some lame parody of the life he still thinks of as _real_. The sister's name is Jen, her boyfriend's name is Brian, and there are more pictures on the fridge of them and _Gordon_ standing on a beach somewhere with a green-eyed man and his grumpy blond wife and a rowdy kid running around with a beach ball and a huge grin and a mop of floppy brown hair. He hates them, would tear them up if he could. But he doesn't, because everything's so strained and if these are his only ties to whatever fucked up world he's in, he's not in a hurry to lose them. He's just as afraid as ever to be alone.

They buy him sleeping pills after he stays awake for two days and cusses the portrait of Guan Yin in her bedroom out for a solid hour.

They force him to take one, and for the first time in god only knew how long, he dreamt.


	6. Chapter 6

The light seems...strange. A little fuzzy…faded around the edges like it had been washed one too many times, yellowed from use and age.

It feels like _real_ light.

There's noise too. Real, organic noise. None of the tinny din he was still convinced was _wrong_ – the whirr of motors, the high pitched shriek of a radio or television, or worse – but the faint sound of birdsong. The low, grating caw of a crow, somewhere.

There's even smell. Stale tea and old news print and cigarette smoke. Freshly washed sheets in all their warm, cottony goodness; overlaid with cheap soap.

It all seemed _right_.

But...all he got was a haze of all this sensation. Nothing concrete. Like there was something standing between him and actually _being_ there.

"...Damn waste of my time…"

_Sanzo…?_

"I swear to every fucking God I know that if you don't wake up and get on with the pathetic waste I _jokingly_ refer to as your life, I'm going to kill you myself."

_N...no…Sanzo! Don't…don't make me go back! Not back there!_

"Ch…just…wake up you fucking dumbass…"

_No! __**Please**__!_

...The ceiling fan is the first thing Gojyo sees, its blades turning lazily as it does nothing to stir the air in his 'sister's' white-washed room. It's either evening or dawn…the light nudging its way in through the cracks in the blinds on the window a watery grey color. As fake as the soft noise of the television from outside. The canned laughter from one of the million cookie-cutter daytime programs he'd been 'gently encouraged' to try watching as part of his rehabilitation.

Jen comes running at the sound of his voice when he starts to break down again. The picture of Guan Yin just keeps smiling from its perch on the wall.


	7. Chapter 7

Days passed. Sleep brought no more glimpses of that other world that he remembered so well. Gojyo starts to doubt everything he thought he'd ever known, staring into his new face every morning and wondering if blue eyes were all he was ever supposed to see, if he really _had_ forgotten about a mother and father living in some far-away city called 'Jersey', who Jen called at one point, just to see if the sounds of their voices changed anything.

How many times had he wanted his life to have been a dream, anyways?

How many times had he been sitting behind the counter of some bar, drinking or picking up some random girl so he could forget everything that he'd lived through…how many nights had he spent as a kid, wishing and praying to gods that never listened that he'd wake up in a comfortable bed, with a family that didn't hate him and eyes and hair that wouldn't turn the rest of the world against him too?

He just regretted that he had to wake up _now_, when he'd finally found somewhere to belong in that damn nightmare of his.

He resigned himself to it, though. Slowly. As the days crept by it got harder and harder to deny that the life he'd been thrown into was a real one. He cut his hand after breaking a glass in the sink by accident. He'd bled. Jen had fussed over him, and somehow, watching blood dribble down his hand from the slice in his finger had made him feel like all of this was the truth. Who believed in demons, anyways? Who believed in weapons that appeared and disappeared whenever you wanted them to, in scrolls of paper that could writhe through the air like living things and kill people on command? Who believed that a kid could survive for five hundred years, locked in a cage, with nothing to eat?

Crazy people believed stuff like that. And if he was going to stay sane, or even _get there_, he had to believe that he wasn't one of them.

The first few weeks were rocky. He didn't remember how to do anything, really. Couldn't drive, didn't know his way around the city…Hell, he still didn't recognize his own name sometimes, and he kept thinking of himself as "Sha Gojyo" instead of "Gordon Shaw", but he could deal with that. He could keep _that_ secret; make new friends that wouldn't know better, palm 'Gojyo' off as a nickname, once he figured out a good enough excuse to. That dream he'd had, with Sanzo in it…that had to have been some kind of omen. Maybe the blond had been a part of his personality all along; the part trying to wake him up out of his coma and get him back on his feet. The part that didn't want him to waste the second chance he'd been given at actually living.

He decided to take that chance. He got a job when he was able, and even if Jen and Brian were a little hesitant at first to let him, he figured out how to get to the little used bookstore by bus. The smell of the books was calming, the quiet was refreshing. And if there were little bits of his mind that still wanted to think that Hakkai would show up out of nowhere and find him, and that _this_ would somehow be the best place to wait, he could scrape a living out of working for the old man that owned the place regardless. And it was easier to forget when he was lifting and carrying. It was easier to make _this_ the real world when there was dust to sneeze out of his nose and splinters to dig out of his fingers from old crates of books that needed moving.

Too bad it seemed that parts of him still wanted to hold on to that maddening glimmer of hope that just _wouldn't die_.


	8. Chapter 8

It wasn't his fault. No one would've been able to say it was. The fucking bookstore hadn't been renovated since the day it was built and as far as he could tell, that had been coming on forty years ago. So when the shelf above the one he'd been stacking gave way with no more warning than a soft creak and snap, he shouldn't have been surprised that his last view of the place was of a copy of _War and Peace_ getting larger and larger, aimed right at his face. As he woke up, he decided that he'd be glad if his nose wasn't broken.

He was disappointed, but…not in the way he thought he'd be.

That warm, half light is back. The scent of warm, clean air, the slightest hint of a breeze…the feeling of clean sheets against his skin…

Little noises…a soft pinging, like some wind chime somewhere rattling in the breeze. The twitter of small birds.

Everything seemed a little sharper. A little…_better_. A little more heart-wrenchingly, wonderfully, _terribly_ real.

"C'mon Gojyo…you can't keep sleepin' f'rever…"

_Tsk…fucking monkey. You think I'm doing this on purpose? Even though you're just a figment of my imagination, you're still a dumbass._

"C'mon Kappa…wake up…"

_Crying now? The fuck is wrong with my subconscious…?_

"…Please…"

The pinging wind chime turned into the ding of the clock on the back wall of the shop, counting out a lonely six o'clock in the relative silence. Nobody had come to check on him, but then, nobody really came looking for used books after around one on a Monday – he'd been keeping track – and the old man tended to fall asleep in his chair behind the register if no one was in the building but them.

At least the hospital wasn't the first thing he saw this time. A blur of fine print wasn't much better, though, and it took him a few minutes to dig himself out of the pile of books that had fallen on top of him. A quick check showed that he wasn't bleeding, thank God, and he figured that it was about time that he got back to work so he cleaned up as best as he could and went back to shelving books, trying not to think about the sound of Goku sniffling. None of that had even been real, right? He'd already decided that he'd been dreaming the whole time.

So why the hell did he still feel bad about the sound of the damn kid crying?


	9. Chapter 9

The days started to blend into a kind of grey haze and Gojyo lost himself in the sameness of his new life. Nothing changed. Hours slid by with the determination of sand falling through an hourglass, leaving him with nothing but a bare impression of their passage. Time turned into a joyless blur, mundane enough to feel safe and stifling at the same time, lulling him into a bone-deep complacency that had him forgetting the last time he'd eaten, slept…seen anything but the vague blur of his life passing him by.

He slid back into the warm comfort of his dreams without noticing.

It was…different this time, somehow. The little, natural noises were carrying an undertone of traffic. The sweet, natural scents of tea leaves and newsprint and fresh air were washed over with a grime of car exhaust and the stale smell of old air, faint enough that he wasn't sure he was actually smelling it. There was a soft scrape and bump, of wood against wood…a door closing quietly as the wind chime's gentle, tinkling notes seemed to warp and distort around the artificial cacophony of an ice-cream truck playing some strange jangle of notes he didn't recognize.

"…Gojyo…"

The other sounds in the room paled in comparison to that. Not Sanzo's voice or Goku's…but Hakkai's. _If you tell me to wake up too…fuck…Hakkai…_

"Gojyo…it's been a long time now. Please…"

_God, Hakkai…please…don't tell me to wake up…I…not you too. I…I could handle everyone else but…_

"_Please_ come back to me, Gojyo."

That…that surprised him. Didn't he want to keep living? Didn't he want to wake up, shake off the specters of this world – a world that he'd dreamed up – off and find…some kind of happiness?

"…Please…"

…Didn't he…?

Where the sound of Goku's sobs had just made him…tired, in a way, sad for a reason he hadn't been able to explain; Hakkai's gentle, hitching breaths broke his heart. If he didn't wake up…would he die? Would he go back to dreaming for whatever time he had left and wither away? Or…was _Hakkai_ real? Was everything _else_ the dream?

Did it matter?

Opening his eyes was the most difficult thing he'd ever needed to do. Harder than staring his reflection down after his 'mother' had torn his face apart. Harder than admitting to himself that yes, maybe it _was_ true that his name was Gordon Shaw and that everything he had ever known was a lie. If he opened his eyes and all he saw was that ceiling fan, he knew he'd die. He'd go to the roof of his building and throw himself off and into the street. And if he opened them and saw _Hakkai_…

…_One thing at a time.._.


	10. Chapter 10

No ceiling fan. No popcorn ceiling. Instead there were high rafters of old, dark wood…the underside of a sloped roof. He blinked a little, trying to force his eyes to focus better on the rich, golden light that was filling the room. It was all there…warm and scented with nature, the light, lemony hint of pine needles wafting in through an open window instead of the cold smells of concrete. His eyes took in his surroundings slowly, his whole body flooded with tension as he tried to keep from looking over to the sound of Hakkai's still shaky breathing just yet. He…he could get to finding out if _that _was really here in a moment.

There were some cups on the table on the other side of the room. Fired clay, from the looks of it…he could see the bubbles in the glaze from where he was. It was one of the oddest things he figured he'd ever take comfort from, but the handmade look of them bolstered his spirit more than he could ever explain. Little inns near rivers did shit like that. Saved money. The fact that he knew that…the fact that he wasn't desperately trying to dig around for information he didn't have, made him bolder.

Bold enough to finally look over at the other man.

His heart nearly stopped…it really _was_ Hakkai…and in an instant all of the doubts he'd had, the fears and worries…they just…disappeared. Who cared if he was dead in some other world? Who gave a shit if he'd written himself off to some kind of unknowable demise by waking up to _this_. Hakkai was worth it.

_I already promised I'd die with him anyhow. Right after I promised…everything else…_

"…Hakkai…?"

If there was anything that could make him decide once and for all that this really _was_ what he'd give up everything for…it was the sight of those beautiful green eyes, brimming with tears. And the warm, solid feeling of Hakkai's body against his as the other man all but tackled him, babbling panicked nonsense about how worried he'd been, how afraid he was that Gojyo would never open his eyes again.

It took what felt like hours to get Hakkai to calm down, but Gojyo was glad for it. Every time he heard the right name fall from those lips, his heart felt a little lighter. Regardless of whether or not it had been a dream, he was starting to remember that he'd gone that whole time without so much as touching someone else, and the way that Hakkai held him, kissed him…

"We thought you were going to d-die…the youkai that stabbed you…his knife had poison on the blade." Hakkai's voice was still shaky, even after Gojyo had finally managed to coach him back down to where he could smile that beautiful worried-but-happy smile he saved for when things finally started to look up after all hell broke loose. "I did everything I could but…dear God Gojyo we came so close to losing you…"

"It's fine, 'Kai." He couldn't help the smile that stretched his lips as he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the other man's eyes. Red hair… "I'm here now, ne? And I'm not leaving again."

The breeze made the wind chime in the window rattle a little as he sat there on the bed with Hakkai all but curled around him, murmuring soft, vehement words of thanks and all of the worries he must have been suffering from all this time. Gojyo ignored it, just like he ignored another sound, just on the edge of hearing…like the wail of sirens.

It disappeared soon enough, though. Drowned out by the clatter of the door opening again and the more than welcome noise of Sanzo and Goku coming to check on them both.


End file.
